RE: [asa] Dawkins new book - objective

Bernie:

I thought I was asking a possibly interesting question.
Apparently you don't think so.

That's OK, but let me ask a follow-up.

You speak of the atheist here.
My question, you suggest, could be submitted to the atheist.
There is no essential reason why it couldn't be.
I didn't presume there was a God (or did I?).

I simply presumed that there it every choice there was a wrong or a good
choice (hence no choice is neither).

And if someone (it could be an atheist) despite his or her best efforts,
chooses wrongly. Have they, to use your terminology, chosen badly?

The first question is whether an atheist can make sense of the question.
Would an atheist necessarily reject outright the premise?

I haven't been following this thread carefully. So it is likely I've
missed much of what has been said.

I do not think of an atheist as simply someone who doesn't believe there
is a god. First, that is far too vague. What is meant by a "god"?
Second, an atheist is not someone who is defined by what they don't
believe, but by what they do believe.

To answer the first question, most people who self-idenitfy themselves as
atheists merely mean that they don't believe in a Christian god (whatever
they may mean by that), or a Muslim god. I don't take this a atheism.
They have simply asserted their disbelief in a certain type of god,
perhaps one that no one believes in. They may very well believe in some
other kind of god.

Atheism is often, it seems, culturally indexed. What is atheism in one
culture may not be in another. So an atheist doesn't go to a Christian
church, or any church in the area, but enjoys instead long walks along the
beach at sunset.

I take all of these to not be atheism. Atheism is not merely opposed to
all forms of theism. Rather they are opposed to all gods, personal or
impersonal. As such, no red-blooded atheist could accept my premise. The
very notion of an objective or absolute morality would let the camel nose
and all into the tent.

To put the point somewhat differently, are Platonists atheists?

bill

    On
Thu, 29 Oct 2009, Dehler, Bernie wrote:

> Bill said:
> " Suppose that in every situation there is a right way to act and a wrong
>
> way. This is something like asking whether God is ever confused as to
>
> what the right thing to do is. Suppose someone, given what he knows of
>
> this absolute standard, provided say in the Ten Commandments, case law,
>
> etc., considers the matter long and seriously and yet acts wrongly. Has
>
> this person sinned?"
>
>
>
> What is "sin." If it is "acting wrongly" then of course it is a sin, since it is saying the same thing (synonyms) when asking
>
>
>
> "considers the matter long and seriously and yet acts wrongly. Has
>
> this person sinned?""
>
>
>
> it sounds to me like you are essentially asking "if someone does something wrong, are they sinning."
>
>
>
> Obviously the answer would be 'yes' for a Christian (an atheist doesn't believe in 'sin' as in 'sin against God'; but could use 'sin' as a term to mean something bad was done).
>
>
>
> ..Bernie
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Bill Powers [mailto:wjp@swcp.com]
> Sent: Thursday, October 29, 2009 6:15 AM
> To: Dehler, Bernie
> Cc: ASA
> Subject: RE: [asa] Dawkins new book - objective
>
>
>
> Bernie:
>
>
>
> You need to be more clear as to what "morals come from God" means.
>
>
>
> When you say morals, what do you mean? Do you mean the notion of "ought"
>
> as opposed to "is"? Do you mean man's sense of ougtness? What else?
>
>
>
> You need to say clearly what "without the need of God" means.
>
>
>
> Does that mean
>
>
>
> 1) that God doesn't exist
>
> 2) without God's explicit and unambiguous direction
>
> 3) without God being involved
>
>
>
> Perhaps there are other understandings
>
>
>
> It seems to me that are many problems here. We need to address what it is
>
> to act morally and to distinguish it perhaps from acting "morally
>
> correct." The first could be a procedure or attitude, the second might be
>
> regarded as comparison with some standard (absolute or relative).
>
>
>
> It seems to me that to require of any "morality" that it be unambiguously
>
> applied is asking too much. Isn't something like this a component of
>
> law. In their case, they rely heavily on case law. Even here it is
>
> clearly not unambiguous.
>
>
>
> The question I would ask is this:
>
>
>
> Suppose that in every situation there is a right way to act and a wrong
>
> way. This is something like asking whether God is ever confused as to
>
> what the right thing to do is. Suppose someone, given what he knows of
>
> this absolute standard, provided say in the Ten Commandments, case law,
>
> etc., considers the matter long and seriously and yet acts wrongly. Has
>
> this person sinned?
>
>
>
> I say yes.
>
>
>
> bill
>
>
>
> On Wed, 28 Oct 2009, Dehler, Bernie wrote:
>
>
>
>> There are two positions I'm hearing:
>
>>
>
>> 1. Morals come from God.
>
>>
>
>> 2. Morals can be deduced without the need for God.
>
>>
>
>> If #1 is true, it would seem reasonable to me that God would also provide a way to discover these morals. But on tricky issues (euthanasia and suicide on the battle field (King Saul's case), for example), there seems to be no absolute answer. Born-again Christians have different opinions. So it is apparent that if God does give morals, he gave no sure means for his followers to discover them... and I'm talking about the 'true believers' and not those 'Christian' in name only.
>
>>
>
>> If #2 is true, then you'd expect different answers because people have different levels of maturity, emotional intelligence, and intellect.
>
>>
>
>> If someone things that God's morals could be discovered clearly, it would be good to pick an example (like euthanasia or battle suicide), and work from the bottom-up to follow the train of thought. But I haven't seen anyone with the willingness to try that. And I think that George agrees that the moral answers can't be clearly discovered, based on his paper covering the euthanasia example, after all is considered, concluding that the final outcome is ultimately a personal decision.
>
>>
>
>> ...Bernie
>
>>
>
>> -----Original Message-----
>
>> From: asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu [mailto:asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu] On Behalf Of Murray Hogg
>
>> Sent: Tuesday, October 27, 2009 8:47 AM
>
>> To: ASA
>
>> Subject: Re: [asa] Dawkins new book - objective
>
>>
>
>> And people read the Bible differently, so why should agreement amongst Christians be expected?
>
>>
>
>> Dehler, Bernie wrote:
>
>>> "It just seems so worthless to say that morals are grounded in reason, then when atheists get together they can't agree on what the correct moral position is."
>
>>>
>
>>> That is because people reason differently, so why shouldn't it be expected???
>
>>>
>
>>> ...Bernie
>
>>>
>
>>> -----Original Message-----
>
>>> From: asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu [mailto:asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu] On Behalf Of Murray Hogg
>
>>> Sent: Tuesday, October 27, 2009 8:21 AM
>
>>> To: ASA
>
>>> Subject: Re: [asa] Dawkins new book - objective
>
>>>
>
>>> Dehler, Bernie wrote:
>
>>>> It just seems so worthless to say that morals are grounded in God, then when Godly people get together they can't agree on what the correct moral position is. Euthanasia was the last specific issue I talked to George about.
>
>>>>
>
>>>> ,,,Bernie
>
>>>
>
>>> To which the obvious response...
>
>>>
>
>>> It just seems so worthless to say that morals are grounded in reason, then when atheists get together they can't agree on what the correct moral position is.
>
>>>
>
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>
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>
>>>
>
>>>
>
>>> To unsubscribe, send a message to majordomo@calvin.edu with
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>>>
>
>>
>
>> To unsubscribe, send a message to majordomo@calvin.edu with
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>>
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>>
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>>
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Received on Thu Oct 29 21:17:30 2009